I recently purchased a Blackberry 7250 (Verizon) due to my need for a phone without a camera (can't bring a camera into my workplace). I am coming from a line of LG phones which have treated my very well. I of course didn't exactly need something as powerful as the blackberry, but most of the phones out there without a camera aren't very cutting edge. Plus having a blackberry although unnecessary, is definitely cool.

Although my job does have BES I have not set it up with that yet and I'm not sure I am going to due to the security restrictions that would be placed on my phone so my comments are based purely on my experience with personal web email. I'm still not even sure how BES works since most of the documentation I have read lightly glazes over the very complex operating modes of the blackberry which is quite annoying. For example nowhere is it explained how the blackberry integrates with the online account you setup and why you'd want to choose one way of doing things over another. Another example is the desktop redirector. I still have no idea how it would be used with different setups after reading extensive "documentation" about it. I learned how to setup gmail on the blackberry only through trial and error.

Moving onto the device itself, my first impression of it compred to the LG is that it is much more slick in terms of navigating menus and selecting various options. The interface is quick and menu options are intuitively located where you'd expect them to be. However, the phone part of the blackberry, in my opinion, is weaker than the LG. The phone is harder to access and annoyingly enough you can't just enter a number and then save it to the address book. You have to go to the address book first and then click on add number. I know the primary purpose of the blackberry is to be a great email tool, but it shouldn't neglect the importance of having a good phone.

On a more positive note, the bluetooth is incredible and works flawlessly with my motorola headset. The email pushing from my gmail account is almost instant as well which is nice.

I have yet to explore many of the other featuers so for now I am going to discuss what bothers me about what I have seen so far. The battery life is attrocious. I downloaded verichat and the battery didn't last more than 10 hours with verichat running in the background. I know that using the radio uses up a lot of battery power, but only 10 hours? I've read someone say they were able to run verichat for much longer than that without killing the battery.

The backlight is another problem. To me it seems like the backlight button is placed in the most difficult place possible to reach. Additionally the button is significantly more recessed than the other buttons which makes it that much harder to push. Can anyone else confirm that the backlight button is supposed to be recessed? Also, and this is more an annoyance than anything else, it would have been nice if greater backlight control was built into the blackberry itself without the need for apps such as BBlight. As it stands it is not possible to make the backlight come on when you remove the bb from your holster without a 3rd party program. The most surprising thing I learned is that there is also no way to get the backlight to turn on when you push any key which is totally different from all cell phones I've seen.

Lastly, the click wheel makes clicking noises when scrolling up, but not when scrolling down. Again this is only a minor annoyance, but it is there. Can anyone else confirm this behavior?

That's all I have for now. I know it's not much but I'd rather get a really good grasp on this phone before giving any additional input since it has a steep learning curve coming from an LG. If anyone has some input or suggestions for the questions I have posed or otherwise, I would love to hear it.

On the light comment, yes you can have it go on with bblight. Just set to user activity instead of the holster option. Also bblight is going to wear out your battery a lot faster, I have recently removed the app from my 7520 and have much better battery life.

pink

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1. Unless you had to go with Verizon, I would have recommended the 7100t (T-Mobile)of 7100g(Cingular), both of which have a more "phone"-centric purpose and form. Most who desire a better phone expirence seem to like the feeling of the 7100 series better than the 72XX series
2. Battery life should be better than 10 hours, but I would recomend topping it off nightly or no longer than every 2 days if it last that long. If your battery is under performing contact Verivon, you may have a defective device. My recollection is the batter life should be a least a day to day and a 1/2 with "normal" usage.
3. Stick with it. The more you use it the easier and user friendly it becomes. As you said this is not a phone, it is an e-mail device with a phone. I liken tham to full use PDA's.

That is just my $0.02. I welcome you and would offer one last thought. The search feature in this forum will lead you to some solutions to problems you have encountered. Battery, backlight, and phone. The anwsers are out there.

There must be something eating up my battery. I just left it charging overnight and it's already down to 70% after 3 hours of sitting in my pocket. I did notice a lot of radio activity when I took it out of my pocket but I have no idea what is running. Verichat is off and I'm not in BBToday. Is there a way to see what apps are currently running and using the radio?

Also, can anyone confirm that the power button is more recessed than the other buttons. I just want to make sure I don't have a defective BB. Thanks